At the mont the moonlight shone upon him, Yan Junze imdiately turned his head to look behind him.
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The head of Aunt i, which he was holding with both hands, was now cradled to his left side for an easier view over his shoulder.
And Aunt i, wearing a smile as well, followed his gaze to look behind them.
One second, two seconds, three seconds... after more than ten seconds, Yan Junze remained motionless, his gaze fixed intently on his own shadow.
There was nothing unusual.
Bathed in the moonlight at this mont, his shadow, clearly cast behind him, surprisingly exhibited no strange alterations.
Fang Ning did not appear.
Yan Junze then turned around and continued walking back and forth at the doorway while holding Aunt i’s head. After a minute, there were still no signs of any abnormalities in his shadow.
"My apologies, Aunt i," Yan Junze began to explain, "A woman has attached herself to , seemingly entering my shadow. As long as my shadow appears under the moonlight, she insists that I stay with her every second that follows."
He paused, seeing that Aunt i simply smiled without responding, he added, "So I wanted to ask for your help to see if we could either get rid of her or persuade her to leave my shadow."
He shrugged, "But from the looks of it now, with you here, this woman doesn’t dare to co out at all. That is to say, she doesn’t dare show herself to you."
The head of Aunt i nestled between his arms suddenly moved. To Yan Junze, it seed as if she nodded, affirming his thoughts.
"Then I will take you back now."
Yan Junze turned and walked towards the small door that led to the underground garage; not long after, he returned to the doorway of the southeastern room. Looking down, he noticed the blood thread that had been connected to Aunt i’s head was still on the floor.
As he approached, the blood thread reattached itself, reconnecting with Aunt i’s head. Her head slipped from his hands and hovered to the entrance of the inner room.
Turning back and smiling at Yan Junze, Aunt i’s head nodded and then vanished inside the room.
Yan Junze waved his hand as if to say goodbye and then turned to leave.
Reaching the stairs, he took out the large umbrella from behind the door and went to the entrance.
Yan Junze looked down at his feet, then opened the large umbrella, readied himself and then stepped one foot outside the underground garage. Moonlight cascaded down, precisely illuminating that foot and casting its shadow.
But only seconds later, the shadow of his foot began to twist. A black arm erged from the shadow, reaching out to grab him.
Yan Junze quickly held the open umbrella over himself, and the abnormality disappeared instantly.
He sighed as he stepped fully out, entirely shielded by the large umbrella from any sliver of moonlight. Shaking his head, he spoke to himself, "My shadow has now beco your best hiding place."
If Aunt i appeared, Fang Ning would choose to disappear. But once Aunt i was no longer there, Fang Ning’s return happened without any delay, even faster than Yan Junze had anticipated.
"There should still be other ways to deal with her," Yan Junze pondered as he returned ho with his umbrella.
At the sa ti.
In that southeastern room of the underground garage.
The floating head of Aunt i, guided by the blood thread, slowly made its way back to a room inside.
In the pitch-dark room, behind stacked boxes and on the damp floor, Aunt i’s headless body lay there. The floating head slowly approached it.
However, the body suddenly began to stir, and two strange babies fought to crawl out from the swollen neck of the headless torso.
Their movents created a series of unsettling noises.
After the strange babies erged, their mouths were covered in a black fluid. One of them grabbed a candle that had fallen to the floor and shared so with the other baby. The two chewed as they retreated to a corner of the room.
Guided by the blood thread, Aunt i’s head reattached itself to the neck of the corpse.
Soon the body moved as if being restored, and she stood up with a smile on her face.
...
The next day, while Yan Junze was still enjoying his sleep, Bao Yunjing’s phone call ca through.
She could not wait any longer and urgently needed Yan Junze to hurry over and deal with the strangeness in her house.
After informing his parents and stating that he might not return until late, he again used Zhou Dali, the professional scapegoat, as a pretext.
By the afternoon, Yan Junze, with his backpack slung over his shoulder and umbrella in hand, stepped out of the door.
Even though he didn’t know if there would be a moon out tonight, it was better to be prepared than to have nothing at all.
However, Yan Junze did not imdiately head to Bao Yunjing’s ho but first made a detour to the "Zhou Erfu" jewelry store where he retrieved the mallet Gu Bai had re-cast for him a few days ago.
Because so new techniques had been incorporated into it, the process took a little longer this ti.
This ti, the mallet had been refined and made from a variety of tals and non-tals to create an alloy mallet, which was much more durable than the previous one.
Moreover, in line with Yan Junze’s instructions, the Black Spirit Bead was not lted into it, but rather set as an inlay, encased in a non-transparent tallic glass containing palladium, and mounted a bit further up on the handle of the mallet.
This tallic glass containing palladium, according to Gu Bai, was extrely hard, almost on par with the alloy itself. It was sothing he had managed to obtain through his connections, and the raw material was not abundant.
Had it not been for Yan Junze solving his family’s trouble last ti, Gu Bai would certainly not have offered this favor, which originally was owed to soone else.
Yan Junze swung the mallet a few tis, feeling that although it was heavier than before, it fit better in his hand; and the spot where the Black Spirit Bead was mounted, with its bulging tallic glass, looked quite beautiful, scoring extra points for the whole mallet.
Nevertheless, even with the improvents, Yan Junze believed the mallet’s effectiveness against strangeness would hardly surpass the original by much, at best it would be less likely to get damaged after such encounters.
But using it against anything more powerful than a Semi-Sculpting Spirit would still be a dead end.
Yan Junze’s current definition for this mallet was that it could serve as a tool for beating Wandering Spirits, provided their forms weren’t too bizarre.
In dire circumstances, the mallet could also be used for self-defense, offering at least so protection against the attack of ferocious strangeness, rather than relying solely on Rewind or Evil Spirit Solid Lock to resolve the issue.
After thanking Gu Bai and having a brief chat, Yan Junze called Bao Yunjing to confirm her address before leaving the jewelry store and heading straight to her ho.
Bao Yunjing’s husband, Yan He, was the financial director of a large corporation in Shuntian City, often busy with work and away from ho for at least ten days a month.
Her residence was in a neighborhood well-known in Shuntian City, a famously wealthy community called Spectacular Courtyard. It was said that when other neighborhoods were selling at ten thousand per square ter, Spectacular Courtyard had already started at thirty thousand.
Upon arrival, Yan Junze signed in at the gate and was then allowed to enter.
He noticed that there were at least three young security guards on duty at the main gate. Bao Yunjing’s family must be quite eminent in Shuntian to live here, and should they find strangeness, getting an Exorcist would be a piece of cake for them.
But at the ti, he didn’t inquire whether Bao Yunjing had reported to the Exorcists or not.
Or perhaps, she had never intended to make such a report.
After entering Spectacular Courtyard, the area was divided into two sections: one was a villa district, and the other was a garden villa area.
According to the information Bao Yunjing sent him, her family lived in unit 3-1, in building B-6 of the garden villa area’s second section.
Having called Bao Yunjing, Yan Junze quickly located the address, and upon reaching the third floor, Bao Yunjing had already opened the door, waiting for him at the entrance.
The mont Yan Junze approached the door, he felt a chill emanating from behind Bao Yunjing, coming from inside the house—it was as if it were from another world.
"Your place here... is much cooler than outside," Yan Junze comnted half-jokingly while entering and changing his shoes.
Bao Yunjing smiled and said, "Maybe it’s the design of the house. It gets really warm inside during winter."
After changing into slippers and glancing up, Yan Junze saw an old man with a head full of white hair standing at the corridor leading to the bedroom; he was only showing half of his body, with the other half concealed in the corridor, standing motionless and peering over with one eye.
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